Three Foot Passing Laws

As of the 2013 legislative season, by my count, 21 US states have added three-or-more-foot passing provisions (not counting NY, Missouri or SC, which both relatively recently added “safe passing” laws without specifying a distance):

CT, Public Act 08-01 enacted a new law in Connecticut, effective October 1, 2008, which requires motorists to allow at least three feet of separation

NH, HB-1203. Requires not only 3 feet, but also “one additional foot of clearance required for every 10 miles per hour above 30 miles per hour”. It has a few other provisions. An extra reflective strip must now be worn in the dark — good idea but seems to me to be an unnecessary legal burden on an otherwise well-lit cyclist.

FL, Florida State Statute 316.083, 316.085

SC, HB3006 passed in 2008, 5 foot distance was dropped from the bill but requires a “safe operating distance”, Section 56-5-3435. The law includes criminal penalties if the infraction results in serious injury or death, Section 56-5-3500. It even makes harassment a crime. There are other good new provisions, in addition to deleting the mandatory sidepath rule, new language in their ride-right rule makes clear “A bicyclist may, but is not required to, ride on the shoulder of the road”, Section 56-5-3430.

CO, Senate Bill 148 governor signed May 12, 2009. also includes something about 2 abreast, and other things. Details at Bicycle Colorado.

MS (Mississippi), “The John Paul Frerer Bicycle Safety Act”, SB3014, becomes law July 1, 2010. Some other stuff in there, not all good “Mississippi also joins the 41 states with discriminatory ‘Far to the Right’ laws on the books”, according to Richard Masoner. General info page: mississippi3feet.org …

MD (Maryland), SB51 in 2010. Modifies transportation section 21-1209 (MD code currently here). Some intricate/odd features, such as if the road is not wide enough to allow 3 feet, drivers don’t have to… strange.

GA. HB101. From 3footrule.com: “May 11th – HB 101 Signed into Law – 3 Foot Safe Passing Rule was approved! Gov Deal signed HB 101 into law. April 14th, 2011 – HB 101 was approved by the House 150-9 with a 3 Foot Safe Passing amendment from the Senate. (Effective July 1, 2011)” Though if you read the bill/law it sounds weak motorist must allow at least three feet “when feasible”, so if it’s not feasible, anything goes. hmmm …

CA SB910 gets vetoed Oct 2011 (with a really stupid explanation by governor) — but in any event, I found 3 other states that i HAD MISSED entirely, so added them to the list: KS, NV, NY (all either in 2011 or 2010). this makes 20 by my count.

PA: HB 170 signed by governor Feb 2, 2012 — 4-foot passing distance. see e.g. bike-pgh.org. It has some other goodies too, but I’m afraid bicyle advocates got more than they bargained for, and not in a good way: the law also contains this abusable new section 3364(2): “A pedalcycle may be operated at a safe and reasonable speed appropriate for the pedalcycle. A pedalcycle operator shall use reasonable efforts so as not to impede the normal and reasonable movement of traffic.” (only applies to two-lane roads, though, so I guess that’s not terribly bad).

TX: although a bill was vetoed by Gov Perry in 2009, with Houston’s passing an ordinance in 2013, many of Texas’ cities, and all large Texas cities, now have some form of safe passing law; For more on the Houston action see here and here.

CA: after several tries, including at least one veto, a 3-foot passing law made it in 2013: AB1371

I was recently asked to provide some legislative history on Arizona’s 3-foot passing law. I ended up researching the wrong bill, HB2503 in the 46th Legislature/1st regular session.
The research for 28-735 will be posted soon.
The research on HB2503 — which is valuable for other reasons — is posted here

confirmed that the following states have nothing special for passing
bicycles, or slow or other vulnerable traffic: HI ID IN NJ NM ND OH PA SD TX WV WY. (PA passed a 4foot law in early 2012)

I found a few missing, and notes on a few others. It seems 50% of
states now have reasonably-similar “3 foot laws”. Do you know if
that’s become a part of UVC? There are ~25 variations on the same
rule; it’s time to standardize, before more states include “extra”
stuff like AZ.

DE: http://delcode.delaware.gov/title21/c041/sc03/index.shtml
|(3) The driver of a motor vehicle, when approaching a bicyclist traveling in the same direction, shall ensure the safety and protection of the bicyclist by:
|
|a. Proceeding with caution and yielding the right-of-way by making a lane change into a lane not adjacent to that of the bicyclist, if possible, with due regard to safety and traffic conditions, if on a roadway having at least 4 lanes with not less than 2 lanes proceeding in the same direction as the approaching vehicle; or,
|
|b. Proceeding with caution and reducing the speed of the vehicle to a safe speed and leaving a reasonable and prudent distance by providing a minimum of 3 feet of clearance while passing such bicyclist, if changing lanes would be impossible or unsafe.

MT: http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/mca/61/8/61-8-320.htm
| 61-8-320. Right-of-way for bicycles. (1) The operator of a motor vehicle may not:
| (a) intentionally interfere with the movement of a person who is lawfully riding a bicycle; or
| (b) overtake and pass a person riding a bicycle unless the operator of the motor vehicle can do so safely without endangering the person riding the bicycle.
| (2) The operator of a motor vehicle shall yield the right-of-way to a person who is riding a bicycle within a designated bicycle lane.
(oh la la)

RI: this is odd, very good in some ways, but bad in others:http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/Statutes/TITLE31/31-15/31-15-18.HTM
|
|”The driver of a motor vehicle may only pass a person operating a
|bicycle”:
| phrased with the burden on the motorist, good
|
|a “safe distance” means a distance that is sufficient to prevent
|contact with the person operating the bicycle:
| well, that seems |completely inadequate, but continues:
|
|”if the person were to fall into the driver’s lane of traffic”:
| that’s odd to write down legislatively, but seems to mean
| mean >3feet (height of bicycle plus torso).
|
|”This subdivision does not apply to a driver operating a motor
|vehicle:”
|
| (i) In a lane that is separate from and adjacent to a designated
| bicycle lane;
| Aha, so RI has actually codified the “City of Flagstaff”
|interpretation! Paint a white line, and anything that doesn’t
|result in a collision is safe.

VT:http://www.leg.state.vt.us/statutes/fullsection.cfm?Title=23&Chapter=013&Section=01033
|(b) Passing vulnerable users. The operator of a motor vehicle
|approaching or passing a vulnerable user as defined in subdivision
|4(81) of this title shall exercise due care, which includes increasing
|clearance, to pass the vulnerable user safely, and shall cross the
|center of the highway only as provided in subdivision (a)(1) of this
|section. (Added 1971, No. 258 (Adj. Sess.), § 3, eff. March 1, 1973;
|amended 2009, No. 114 (Adj. Sess.), § 2..)

39:4-100. Rate of speed across sidewalk
No vehicle or horse shall be driven or ridden across a sidewalk at
a rate of speed greater than four miles per hour.

39:4-72. At the request of or upon a signal by putting up the hand or
otherwise, from a person riding or driving a horse in the opposite
direction, the motor vehicle driver shall cause the motor vehicle to
stop and remain stationary so long as may be necessary to allow the
horse to pass.

39:4-32
[…]
|g.Nothing contained herein shall relieve a driver from the duty to
|exercise due care for the safety of any pedestrian upon a roadway.
|Nothing herein shall relieve a pedestrian from using due care for his
|safety.
|
|h.In the event of a collision between a vehicle and a pedestrian
|within a marked crosswalk, or at an unmarked crosswalk at an
|intersection, there shall be a permissive inference that the driver
|did not exercise due care for the safety of the pedestrian.

39:4-14.5.
As used in this act “bicycle” means any two-wheeled vehicle having a
rear drive wheel which is solely human-powered and having a seat
height of 25 inches or greater when the seat is in the lowest
adjustable position.

The RI code is easy to navigate, looks pretty clean, but has this:http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/Statutes/TITLE31/31-19/31-19-15.HTM
| § 31-19-15 Left turns. – (a) A person riding a bicycle intending
| to turn left shall, unless he or she complies with the provisions
| of § 31-16-2, approach the turn in a position as close as
| practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway. The turn
| shall be made at a position as close as practicable to the
| right-hand curb or edge of the roadway along which the bicyclist
| intends to proceed after turning.
31-16-2 is the “vehicular” left turn; I guess 31-19-15 as phrased is
premised on the idea that vehicular lefts are abnormal/atypical/weird
for bicyclists. VA code resembles RI, but is phrased more clearly.

RI (and at least OH) requires giving an audible signal when one
vehicle overtakes another. Odd, but I guess that’s not necessarily
bad. I assume it’s not enforced, and probably not common practice,
either.

The Iowa Attorney General has issued an opinion (binding on all county attorneys in the state, and law enforcement as well), that the Iowa Code requires vehicles passing bicyclists to give them the whole lane.

The background to this opinion…

The Iowa Code spells out what constitutes safe passing when vehicles on public roads pass other vehicles (321.299). Although most people believe that a bicycle is a vehicle, in Iowa this is not the case. Anything that is human-powered cannot, by the definitions in the Iowa Code, be a vehicle. Bicycles are defined as ‘devices’. Because of that definition (321.1, 40c), some county attorneys have concluded that bicycles are not vehicles, and therefore, the vehicles that pass them do not have to conform to the Code, which says that when passing you have to give the vehicle you’re passing the whole lane (that’s obvious for a car passing a car or truck, but it’s also what’s required when a car passes a motorcycle). Based on this interpretation, in some counties a vehicle can pass close to a bicycle and not be cited.

That interpretation is now invalid. The State Attorney has ruled that because bicyclists have “all the rights and duties…applicable to the driver of a vehicle…” (321.213, 2), then the rules of 321 apply to them as well, which includes the rule of passing and giving the device/vehicle being passed the whole lane.

Mark Wyatt, Executive Director of the Iowa Bicycle Coalition, has told the Coalition’s membership that county attorneys have just received a training notification regarding this opinion, and that subsequently we expect the passing law will be enforced state-wide. There is also buy-in from law enforcement.

Already, the Iowa DOT Drivers Manual has been modified to read: “Give bicycle riders the room they deserve and need for safety. When passing a bicycle rider, pass as if the cyclist were a vehicle and move into the other lane.”

Many states have a 3-foot passing law. Our law is now bigger than that, we have the full lane. This came about, in part, by the work of Iowa Bicycle Coalition. Consider joining: http://iowabicyclecoalition.org/

So that’s the infamous28-735 section C:
” …this section does not apply to a bicyclist who is injured in a vehicular traffic lane when a designated bicycle lane or path is present and passable”
There’s some deeper background here http://azbikelaw.org/articles/ThreeFoot.html , see the part about Senator Bee’s (of Tucson area) floor amendment. I’ve always assumed he is a bike hater (or at least believes bicyclists have inferior rights); but don’t really know the back story.

I guess i should also point out it’s never really been an issue, as far as I know. Fear from the rear is mostly just that; fear.
Though it is interesting. for example Bee almost certainly thinks there are bike lanes all over Pima county — but if you ask PDOT they will (or at least used to) tell you they are shoulders, and are not designated bike lanes.
Another interesting case might be lets say for example in Flagstaff where they have sidewalk side paths — is that a “bike path” per 735C?

I should also point out i’m not sure how often the enhanced fine gets applied; it seems to me it simply slips through the cracks. e.g. this driver in Scottsdale for whatever reason didn’t pay the fine: